Can this be done?

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

Have a question or two.

Can you buy two hardrives and set one harddrive to run the OS,. and one hardrive just for games? If so would i get a bump in performance boost?,

knight0334 · Posted: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:56:30 Post Subject:

Why couldn't it be done???

No performance boost.. unless the game drive is faster to begin with.. Buy more RAM, a few gigs of ram and what ever map you're playing on would nearly reside completely on it. Harddrive performance has a minimal effect on gaming once the game is loaded.

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

ok, thanks.

Would it help keep the hard drive from dying or at least help them run better?.

knight0334 · Posted: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 07:01:59 Post Subject:

It may... It would spread the usage across a couple drives, which theoretically would help. But HDD's are like time-bombs without a time display.. Its only a matter of time before they go, you just dont know when.

What helps the most is keep the WIndows install seperate from the applications and storage. If Windows ever gets hosed, you can reformat and reinstall without losing your data.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:57:43 Post Subject:

I like to do the same... Split the programs from the data on two hard drives... My Documents, music, movies, e-mails, etc., and usually the swap file on a second drive... while the first drive just houses the programs.

knight0334 · Posted: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:18:24 Post Subject:

I have my drives in RAID 0 with four partitions. 4x120gb

+/- sizes..
1. OS 20gb
2. Appz 120 gb
3. Media(storage) 320gb
4. Swapfile 8gb

Even when I run a single large drive I partition to keep things seperate. You gotta be about stupid to only have one partition with a huge drive, keeping everything together.. One virus or malware problem and you lose everything if you have to reformat...

Always, and I mean always install the OS, drivers and essential appz on one drive/partition, then applications and/or saved media files/backups/etc on another drive or partition or two..

Another thing that helps is setting up a dedicated partition for the Pagefile/Swapfile. 4GB is all 32bit Windows can recognize, set size to Initial=4096 and Max=4096. Once the dedicated partition is set, remove the Swap/Pagefile from the drive that has the OS.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:25:22 Post Subject:

Biggest way to keep up performance with another hard drive is to put the swap file on a different physical drive than things like games and the OS.

Means that spindle isn't having to handle both the read/writes of the OS, the game, and the swap.

Charlie · Posted: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:42:39 Post Subject:

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

Ok I'm pretty much sold on trying to set this up. It sounds better then how I'm running it now,Guess i fall into the stupid group as this how I'm running now.

I would like just to have a hard drive or OS and system drivers, video etc,... and have another hard drive for games, pictures,videos, etc.

I'm not sure on how to set this up and what all i need, I know i need to hard drivers but thats about all. I have plenty of SATA connections on my mobo just not sure what i need to do, Or is it easer to take to my pc shop and have them help me?

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

If you can swing it, I would actually go with three hard drives.

1. OS, Main Apps (Office, Outlook, Photoshop type apps).
2. Video/Music/Data files and Windows Swap file
3. Games and other HD intensive stuff

All you have to do is plug in one hard drive and do the OS install, drivers, etc.

Then shut down, plug in the other drive(s) and configure in Windows. Then whenever you are installing any games, put them on the second drive (commonly listed as something other than C Smile

. Use the Administrative Tools to rearrange your drive letters prior to installing anything on any drive other than the OS (C Smile

.

For my second system I have:
1. OS/Outlook/Photoshop/Newsreader/Video Converter Applications (80GB)
2. Games (120GB)
3. Data Files - Music, Movies, Mail File, Downloads, etc and the Windows Swap file here (450GB)